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The Essentials of Masking
I found that a lot of maps, even very well done ones, completely lack masking. My purpose here is to explain what it is and a little of how and when it should be used. Feel free to improve and clean up this guide if you want. ~Fulano What is masking? Masking simply means you are blocking off areas of a Heroes map as unusable. You could do the same by covering every square inch of the map with objects but masking is a lot easier and helps the game run better on older computers. Plus it opens up new possibillites. How do you mask? In the tools area of the map editor, go to the "Masks" tab (To the left of the Craigs tab). The "Draw Tool Size" box simply lets you choose how big an area to mask. I usually do my preliminary masking with the 3x3 or 5x5 square then I touch up with the 1x1 square. Click the "Mask" button to mark areas yellow that you don't want the game to let players get to. Click the "Erase" button to un-mask areas. Why do you mask? Masking has several benifits, but the biggest advantage is it speeds up the AI turns. If you mark off open areas as unreachable the AI won't spend time processing those squares each turn. Another benifit is to keep unreachable creatures from spawning during the weeks that double creature growth. Many maps I've played have dozens of creature stacks scattered about that you can't reach because it's in an area a hero can't get to. The third reason I try to thuroughly mask my maps is that it keeps the players from wasting precious movement points by going to areas that won't help him at all. When do you mask? I try to put a mask on all squares that meet these conditions: #Any square that the players can't get a hero to. #Any area you don't want the hero to pass. #Any area that is bigger than it needs to be. #Any squares that the player doesn't need to go to. Any square the player can't get a hero to. It keeps extra creatures from appearing there, and you don't have to worry about trying to fill it solid with tress and rocks. It helps the map run faster and keeps the game from having to draw dozens of stray creatures and slowing down computers. Any area you don't want a hero to pass I've seen many maps that use solid lines of rocks or trees to try to block a player from passing an area. Not only is this usually ugly, it also slows the game down because it has to draw lots of extra objects. All you really need to do is put a few trees along the edge of the forest then mask along the trees so the player can't pass. I usually mask a few squares around trees anyway do players can't walk under them. Any area that is bigger than it needs to be Sometimes maps will have large open areas. These usually cause the AI to take very long turns when it's heroes get into these areas because it has a lot of squares to process so it can decide which way to go. I usually scatter objects around such areas then spread plenty of masks around and under trees. The player can still have a decent amount of freedom in such areas but the number of squares to process can be reduced by 75% Any squares that the player doesn't need to go to Most maps have lots of little one square nooks here and there that the player doesn't need to go to. A good path only needs to be 2-3 squares wide. You can actually even mask squares that have treasures and monsters in them. As long as the player can reach the square next to it they will still be able to pick up objects on the map. I hope this guide was useful!